How to Add and Configure SCSI Adapters for a Virtual Machine

Article
01/17/2008

You can add and configure one or more virtual SCSI adapters to a virtual machine by creating or modifying a Virtual Machine Manager hardware profile.

Note

Although you can add virtual hard disks and virtual DVD drives to the IDE bus on an IDE device on a hardware profile, you can add only virtual hard disks to the SCSI bus on a SCSI adapter.

Use the procedures in this topic to perform the following tasks:

Add a Virtual SCSI Adapter. You can perform this procedure on a new or existing stand-alone hardware profile. You can also perform this procedure on the Configure Hardware wizard page in the New Virtual Machine Wizard or New Template Wizard or on the properties page of an existing virtual machine or template.
Add a Virtual Hard Disk to a Virtual SCSI Adapter. You can perform this procedure on the Configure Hardware wizard page in the New Virtual Machine Wizard or the New Template Wizard. You can also perform this procedure on the properties page of an existing virtual machine or template. However, you cannot add a virtual hard disk to a stand-alone hardware profile.

Before You Start

The following procedure assumes one of the following:

You are creating a new stand-alone hardware profile and are configuring the Hardware Settings tab.
You are configuring hardware profile settings on the Configure Hardware page of the New Template Wizard or the New Virtual Machine Wizard.
You are configuring the properties of an existing stand-alone hardware profile on its Hardware Settings tab or are configuring an existing template or virtual machine on the Hardware Configuration tab.

To add and configure a SCSI adapter for a virtual machine

To add a SCSI adapter to the hardware profile, in the left pane, click Bus Configuration, and then click SCSI Adapter on the top menu.
In the left pane, under Bus Configuration, click SCSI Adapter 0 if this is the first SCSI adapter you add (or SCSI Adapter n if this is not the first SCSI adapter), and then in the results pane accept the defaults or modify the following settings:
1. Share SCSI bus for clustering. Select this check box (optional) if you want to enable failover between two virtual machines. Both virtual machines must be on the same physical host and the shared cluster volume must be a fixed (not dynamic) virtual hard disk.
  This clustering feature is built on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 technology. For more information about this type of clustering for virtual machines, see the help topic "Clustering virtual machines" in the Virtual Server help and see "Using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to Create and Configure a Two-Node Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Cluster" at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=30134.
2. SCSI Adapter ID. Accept the default value (which is 7) for SCSI Adapter ID, or select the alternative available number (which is 6) from the drop-down list box. Each SCSI adapter can have the same ID number (such as 7) because each adapter is on a separate SCSI bus.
  You can add up to four SCSI adapters to a virtual machine. Each SCSI adapter supports up to seven virtual hard disks. However, each SCSI adapter can support only one virtual hard disk that is shared for clustering.
To save the settings, do one of the following:

Option 1: If this hardware profile is a new or existing stand-alone hardware profile, click Apply to save the settings.

Option 2: If this hardware profile is on the Configure Hardware page in the New Virtual Machine Wizard or the New Template Wizard (and you have completed any other settings you want to configure on this hardware profile), click Next to save the settings and continue to the next page. Alternatively, to save your settings not only in this wizard but also as a stand-alone profile, click Save Profile, type a name in the Name field on the General tab (and, optionally, change any other settings); click Apply, click OK to return to the Configure Hardware page; click Next to continue to the next wizard page, and then complete the wizard as usual.

Option 3: If this hardware profile is on the properties page of an existing virtual machine or template, click Apply to save the settings.

To add a virtual hard disk to a virtual SCSI adapter

To add a virtual hard disk to the SCSI bus on the SCSI Adapter that you already added to the hardware profile, in the left pane, under Bus Configuration, click SCSI Adapter n, and then click VHD on the top menu. (This option is not available on a stand-alone hardware profile.)
Under Attachment, accept the default channel, or select a different channel to which to attach this virtual hard disk from the Channel drop-down list box.

The SCSI bus can support up to four SCSI adapters. On a SCSI bus, the seven possible positions to which to attach a virtual hard disk are the following:

SCSI 0 ID 0

SCSI 0 ID 1

SCSI 0 ID 2

SCSI 0 ID 3

SCSI 0 ID 4

SCSI 0 ID 5

SCSI 0 ID 6
Under Virtual Hard Disk, select one of the following options:

Option 1: Select the option Use an existing virtual hard disk if you want to add an existing virtual hard disk to the virtual machine. Click Browse to display the Select a virtual hard disk dialog box, and then select the virtual hard disk that you want to use from the list that displays on this screen.

If your Virtual Machine Manager library contains a large number of virtual hard disks, after you click Browse, you can filter the displayed list of virtual hard disks from which to choose by using the following fields:

Library group:

Option 2: Select the option Create a new virtual hard disk (which is available on the hardware profile for a virtual machine but not on the hardware profile for a template) if you want to create a new virtual hard disk, you can accept the defaults or modify the values for the following options:

Type. Select Dynamic or Fixed. (The default value is Dynamic.)
Destination file name. In the Destination file name field, do one of the following:

Option 1: If you selected Use an existing virtual hard disk but want to rename the existing virtual hard disk, type the new file name in this field.

Option 2: If you selected Create a new virtual hard disk, type the file name of the new virtual hard disk that you want to create in this field.
To save the settings, do one of the following:

Option 1: If this hardware profile is on the Configure Hardware page in the New Virtual Machine Wizard or the New Template Wizard (and you have completed any other settings you want to configure on this hardware profile), click Next to save the settings and continue to the next page. Alternatively, to save your settings not only in this wizard but also as a stand-alone profile, click Save Profile, type a name in the Name field on the General tab (and, optionally, change any other settings); click Apply, click OK to return to the Configure Hardware page; click Next to continue to the next wizard page, and then complete the wizard as usual

Option 2: If this hardware profile is on the properties page of an existing virtual machine or template, click Apply to save the virtual hard disk settings.

How to Add and Configure SCSI Adapters for a Virtual Machine

Before You Start

See Also

Concepts

Additional resources